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Founder. Operator. Investor. Educator. No matter the role, I’ve always believed in trusting your instincts and never outsourcing your judgment.
 
That mindset has led me down an unconventional path from poverty to investor. I grew up in Queens, hawking flowers on street corners and working at McDonald’s to help put food on the table. On a mission to transcend poverty as fast as possible, I dropped out of high school at 16 to work full-time and enroll in college early.
 
Over the next decade, I earned a law degree from Fordham at night and began a career as the youngest press secretary in NYC history, where I helped manage the global press response to 9/11.
 
I went on to be an executive for two NFL teams, found/invest in some of the most dynamic brands through RSE Ventures, and become a guest shark on ABC’s Shark Tank (seasons 10-11) as well as an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, where I co-teach "Moving Beyond Direct-to-Consumer." 
 
Always looking to meet great founders and the people who invest in them.

Follow me on Twitter @MHiggins.

Matt Higgins

Some of the world’s most transformative technologies don’t start in labs. 

They start in elite competitive arenas where performance demands are highest, failure is immediate, and innovators are forced to redefine what is possible.

Think about Ferrari. 

Ferrari began as a racing company, not a consumer brand.

Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1929, it used Formula 1 as a proving ground where engineering was tested under the harshest conditions imaginable. The road cars the world covets were not born from showroom whiteboards or hypothetical demos. They were forged on unforgiving circuits where speed, reliability, and performance determine the difference between success and failure. 

Only after technology was validated on the track was it transferred to road cars, making Ferrari a rare example of a company where the consumer product is the byproduct of elite competition. Racing was not a marketing exercise. 

It was the foundation of Ferrari’s engineering DNA.

That same dynamic is happening in drones today.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote the first check into The Drone Racing League, where elite pilots flew custom-built drones at over 100 miles per hour through complex three-dimensional courses, pushing hardware and software to the limits of physics and human reflexes.

Broadcast live on ESPN, from stadiums in France, Germany, and Saudi Arabia to arenas in Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, our racing drones were pushed to their limits across the globe.

Whether in competition or high-performance test environments, they were flown under extreme conditions, exposing weaknesses instantly and forcing rapid iteration at the edge of what the systems could handle. Even a few nanoseconds of latency between drone and pilot could mean a crash before the pilot realized it had happened. 

This was the original no-fail drone mission.

The technologies developed there were not just for sport. They proved real-world value and opened a path to far higher stakes, including national security, battlefield advantage, and life-saving applications.

That insight informed our next chapter: co-founding Huntsville, Alabama-based PDW with Nicholas Horbaczewski, Ryan Gury, and Trevor Smith.

What began as performance-driven racing technology evolved into a company building next-generation tactical drones and autonomous systems for defense and public safety. PDW’s systems, including the C100, are now deployed at every level of the United States military.

In the same way Ferrari’s racing pedigree became the foundation of its engineering excellence, elite platforms like drone racing accelerate innovation by demanding leaps traditional product development rarely forces.

The lesson is simple: find your hardest arena, compete there, and let that pressure forge products that matter.

CEO and Cofounder at RSE Ventures | WSJ Bestselling Author: Burn the Boats, Harper Collins, 2023 | Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School

RSE Ventures

RSE is a private investment firm, co-founded by Stephen Ross and Matt Higgins, that focuses on sports and entertainment, media and marketing, food and lifestyle, and technology.

Brand Director

Content Creator

Harvard Business School

Moving Beyond Direct-to-Consumer is a SIP (Short Intensive Program) at Harvard Business School, taught by Leonard Schlesinger, Ayelet Israeli, and Matt Higgins. Now in its 5th year, MBDTC continues to be one of the highest-rated courses at HBS.

Associate Course Fellow

Bartesian

Bartesian is an intelligent drink system that lets you bring the bar home with the push of a button.

Content Marketing Manager

HBK Engineering, LLC

HBK Engineering, LLC is a fully licensed, professional engineering design firm headquartered in downtown Chicago.

Digital Content Creator

VaynerMedia

VaynerMedia is a contemporary global creative and media agency with an expertise in driving relevance for clients and delivering impactful business results.

Design Resident

inDinero

inDinero is a SaaS startup giving small businesses an integrated finance operations team.

Sales Manager

SafeHalo

Founded social venture to reduce sexual assaults on university campuses
Created marketing campaigns and leveraged social media to spread the word
Recruited 85 student volunteers and got 135 students home safely
Expanded to 2 colleges (Rutgers University, Emerson College), 25+ universities on waitlist
Open-sourced SafeHalo framework for students to start service at their universities
Featured by the Big Ten, MTV & Rutgers University
Invited to Mountain View for Y Combinator Summer 2017 accelerator interviews

Founder

MGM+

Conducted deep dive analysis into Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and 360° video 
Researched key market players, OEMs, application trends and outlined market ecosystem
Created competitive analysis for premium networks, as well as OTT platforms
Presented findings and VR opportunity for EPIX to CEO, COO and CDO
Reviewed due diligence on past MVPD and OTT deals

Business Operations, Development & Strategy Intern

Drizzle

Co-founded mobile messaging app
Developed comprehensive experience design, naming, and overall branding of company
Created and tailored Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns to drive user installs and interaction
Drove over 40,000 installations on Google Play store within 50 days of launch
Raised $250k+ venture capital seed round

Co-Founder & User Experience Designer

DreamIt Ventures

Worked personally with startups in DreamIt Summer 2015 Accelerator
Developed UI/UX wireframes, received usability feedback and created several iterations
Started from pencil sketches to lo-fi and hi-fi mockups before delivering final front-end designs
Created creative landing pages for brands, stylized pitch decks, and brand + style guides
Utilized Photoshop, Illustrator, Sublime Text, Sketch 3 for wireframes, logos, visual brand assets
Worked with the following companies in design + creative branding role: Triggerhood, THRONE, Ryze, SENNA, Dibs, Karavan, CoFamilies, YapTap

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Matt Higgins's LinkedIn Performance

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